


Brave Princess

by MissNMikaelson



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissNMikaelson/pseuds/MissNMikaelson
Summary: He has a way of making her smile, after 125 years she had almost forgotten.





	Brave Princess

“Maybe you should ease up on the jo juice?" He dropped into a chair across from her and reached for a glass.

“I haven't been drunk in over 125 years,” she rolled her eyes, downing another glass of the liquid. It had a far more pleasant taste than Monty's moonshine.

She blinked the tears from her eyes when she thought of her old friend. For all her talk Monty had been the one to save them all. For all her tough decisions Monty had been the one to find them a new home.

She wished he had put himself in Cryo just so he could have seen it.

“Clarke?”

She shook herself from her thoughts and lifted her slightly unfocused gaze to Bellamy. He was the only one not treating her like a pariah these days.

“Why are you so nice to me?” Her words came out more slurred than she intended, betraying her drunken state; if she wasn’t careful he’d cut her off like he had that one time at the dropship. He simply hadn’t believed her when she’d told him about the purple leaf telling her to jump in the river; he had also never mentioned it again when she sobered up.

A part of her thought she knew why he was the first forgiving her, and it only had a little to do with his sudden knowledge of her radio calls: 2199 radio calls.

She thought she saw the words on the curve of his lips and again in the gleam of his eye, but he took her by surprise and said something completely different.

“You were doing what you had to protect the person you loved,” he shrugged one shoulder, praying she was too drunk to see the way he bit his cheek. It took everything he had not to say the words he had longed to say back in the lab before all hell had broken loose and he had been forced to leave her behind, before he had mourned her ‘death’.

“Go ahead,” she leaned over the table and met his eyes, a self-deprecating smirk lifting the edge of her mouth, “say it.”

“Say what?” He frowned.

“What you’re thinking,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “People die when I’m in charge.”

And there it was: the stab of guilt. He never should have said those words, he had regretted them the instant they had left his mouth, but there was no way to take them back. He wondered if they would ever get back to the way they used to be.

“You weren’t the only one in charge , Clarke,” his voice was quiet. “You didn’t want to close the door of the dropship until I nodded. You were not the only one pulling the lever at Mount Weather, and there is no way you can be held responsible for what happened at the bunker; that one was all me.”

He rubbed his hand over his jaw when he thought of it: opening the door for his sister, who upon reflection had already been headed down the dark road; the road that led to bloodreina.

“I could have stopped you,” she ran her finger around the rim of her glass, “I could have shot you.”

Even as she said it she knew it wasn’t true. She hadn’t been able to pull the trigger then, and she knew that if her back was to the wall and the only way to save her people now was to put a bullet in Bellamy Blake she wouldn’t be able to do it.

“Sure,” he nodded, amusement twinkling in his eyes. He had known the moment she leveled her gun on him that she would never pull the trigger; he had seen it in her eyes.

She tilted her head to the side and watched as a cheery fire crackled in the hearth. All she had wanted after seeing Madi and the others safely to bed was one night to forget everything before she had to start worrying over the things she had learned during the day, but it seemed she couldn’t forget; the pain in her palm was too fresh.

She curled her fingers into a tight fist and hissed when the cut burst open again. Drops of black blood fell to stain the cheery tabletop.

“What happened?” Bellamy reached instinctively for her wrist, turning over her palm so he could inspect the damage.

“I decided to trade in my murder clothes for a hero Cape,” she snapped before remembering that Murphy was not still in the bar but asleep. “A perfectly good quip wasted.”

“Excuse me?” Bellamy tried not to laugh when she groaned. He pressed a clean cloth he assumed was a napkin again her hand.

“Murphy was being an ass,” she waved her free hand; the one in his grip tingled.

Her brain was too fuzzy to wonder why she was so dismissive of the things Murphy had said to her while the others were gone; all she knew was that something had shifted when he found her with a knife to her throat. They were nowhere near where they had once been, but they had taken a step closer; it helped that his comments had lacked their former bite.

“It's his default setting,” Bellamy rolled his eyes. “How did you hurt your hand?”

She poured another cup of jo juice, grinning when she only spilled a few drops on the table, and poured out one for him; a tiny splash of liquid came up to soak through her cuff. She had always intended to tell him about the dinner when they had been denied the safety of Sanctum, but she had planned on being sober for it.

Once she started she couldn’t seem to stop.

“I was angry and wanted to give Jordan a good lecture…”

“You wanted to scream,” he cut in. He couldn’t blame her. He would have had the same reaction.

“So I go looking for him,” she continued, acknowledging his interruption with a nod, “and find him unconscious and that girl, Delilah, has been kidnapped. I didn’t think about it before running off after her and attacking the guy that had taken her. He cut me, and recoiled.”

“Black blood can have that effect on people who’ve never seen it,” Bellamy picked up his glass when he was sure the wound had stopped bleeding.

“He knew what it was,” she shook her head, stubbornly. “He called me a host.”

“Host?” Bellamy paled, remembering all too well the days when Allie had tried to end humanity.

“Mmhmm,” Clarke sipped her drink, “Russell Lightbourne, the seventh of his name,” her lips twisted, “said it was royal blood and then nicked his finger to prove his point.”

“Does that make you royalty?” Bellamy cocked a heavy eyebrow.

“And some sort of host,” her eyes flickered up to where Madi slept soundly above them.

“And the good people of Sanctum,” he chewed over his words, wanting to get them just right in case of listening ears, “do they know the extent of Earth's royal family?”

“I think my blood was the reason they said we could stay,” she mused biting her bottom lip. “The way they treat the night bloods here… I don’t know what it means, but as the only royal from earth I intend to find out.”

She felt herself sobering as he raised his glass in toast. The confirmation that he would keep his mouth shut, and the mouths of everyone else if it came down to it, flashed in his eyes; she felt the reassurance in her bones.

There was still a canyon separating them, five years apart creating a wall in front of the chasm, and some hurtful words locking the door. They had broken through the lock during the red sun and stepped through the door when he came back with Madi, but the chasm had yet to be breached.

“I say we're lucky,” a smirk played at the edge of his mouth, “to have a brave princess in our midst.”

Her eyes dropped to the table as a flush stained her cheeks. How many times had she dreamed of hearing him call her that damned nickname again?

Too many times to count, that was for sure, but hearing it made her smile, and somewhere beyond the crackling fire she heard the unmistakable sound of a wood being banded together for a bridge.


End file.
